


kim seungmin's guide on how to raise your (very own!) baby dragon

by lightbeams



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: 2min parents but with a baby dragon, 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Angst with a Happy Ending, But also, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Oh also, actually not really domestic fluff more like Domestic Bantering, it's just them taking care of a baby dragon, no prizes on guessing who's the baby dragon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26525686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightbeams/pseuds/lightbeams
Summary: Kim Seungmin is just trying his best to get along in life when a pretty-faced stranger, looking like he’s stepped straight out of theScarlet Heart Ryeodrama Seungmin just binged, appears on his doorstep.With a baby dragon in his arms.“Do you have a blanket?” The stranger asks.“A…” Seungmin blinks, faltering at the odd request. “A what?”“A blanket,” the stranger repeats, annoyance slowly creeping up on his features. The creature in his arms stirs, tiny rings of smoke puffing out of its nostrils. “For the baby dragon?”Kim Seungmin's attempts to raise a baby dragon with Lee Minho, who claims to be a time-traveller.
Relationships: Kim Seungmin/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 124
Kudos: 522





	kim seungmin's guide on how to raise your (very own!) baby dragon

**Author's Note:**

> t/w: it's implied that seungmin struggles with social anxiety, and while there are no panic/anxiety attacks, there are some mild descriptions of anxious feelings in the story. please be careful and stay safe while reading!
> 
> also, i know nothing about dragons so everything is made up, sorry if anyone out there is a dragon expert and finds all of these extremely unrealistic/ooc sadlkhshd
> 
> happy early birthday to kim seungmin! <3
> 
>  **EDIT:** hi! if you would like to write any fics that are a spin-off or inspired by this one, please **ask me first** either via the comments or through twitter (@divorcedrachas)! don't worry i'm not gatekeeping or anything i just want to be given a heads up!
> 
> Translated to [Russian by Ashimu](https://ficbook.net/readfic/10307302)! Thank you!

Kim Seungmin is just trying his best to get along in life when a pretty-faced stranger, looking like he’s stepped straight out of the _Scarlet Heart Ryeo_ drama Seungmin just binged, appears on his doorstep.

With a baby dragon in his arms.

“Do you have a blanket?” The stranger asks.

“A…” Seungmin blinks, faltering at the odd request. _Maybe I’ve gone crazy. Maybe I’ve finally lost it. Hyunjin was right when he told me to please take care of my mental health._ “A _what_?”

“A blanket,” the stranger repeats, annoyance slowly creeping up on his features. The creature in his arms stirs, tiny rings of smoke puffing out of its nostrils. “For the baby dragon?”

—

**Step 1: Acknowledge that your baby dragon (and his caretaker) is real.**

“You’re a time-traveller,” Seungmin deadpans, glancing warily at the irisdescent-scaled creature, now bundled up warmly in _his_ favourite blanket, in the stranger’s arms. “And that is a real, baby, dragon.”

“Yes,” the pretty-faced stranger replies without hesitation. 

He had introduced himself earlier on as Lee Minho, a _time-traveller_ , when he’d unceremoniously invited himself straight into Seungmin’s apartment. 

A time-traveller. A _time-traveller._

Seungmin can feel the back of his head throbbing; the migraine he’s been working to keep away slowly creeping back up on him again. 

Minho, however, senses none of Seungmin’s growing distress. His gaze is fixed on the bundle he’s holding closely to his chest, a small hint of a smile on his face. “And he is not just _a_ baby dragon. He is _the_ baby dragon. The last of his kind.” 

Seungmin takes a deep breath. Holds it in for four seconds. Exhales. Holds it for four seconds, just like his therapist had taught him before he stopped going for sessions altogether. “And why is that so? Why are you _here_?”

“I told you already,” Minho frowns, gentle smile instantly wiping off his face, annoyed at the implication that Seungmin hadn’t paid attention to the life story he’d just shared. 

The thing is, see, Seungmin _was_ paying attention. He just wasn’t sure if he believed any of it. 

The baby dragon puffs out another ring of smoke, filling the room with a slight singed smell. Minho immediately coos, adjusting the blanket around the tiny scaled creature. 

_That’s my favourite blanket,_ he despairs.

“Yes. Yes, you did,” Seungmin acknowledges tiredly, rubbing his eyes forcefully. _This is just a fever dream. When I wake up, everything will go back to normal._

When he opens his eyes, Minho is still sitting there, in his royal blue silk _hanbok_ accented with gold, looking as annoyingly pretty as he did half an hour ago at Seungmin’s door, windswept and wary. 

_This is not a fever dream._

Seungmin wants to cry.

  
  


“So,” Hyunjin blinks, stirring his iced americano extremely slowly, trying to process what Seungmin’s told him. “You met a time-traveller yesterday. And you gave him your favourite blanket. So his baby dragon can be kept warm.”

Seungmin had called Hyunjin in a panic this morning, demanding that they meet _immediately_. 

Being the good friend that he is, Hyunjin had agreed readily, so now they’re seated at the corner of a busy Starbucks, far enough that anyone walking in to just order their daily coffee wouldn’t bear witness to Seungmin’s slow descension into insanity. 

Yet Seungmin still can’t shake off the feeling that everyone is watching them. 

More specifically, watching _him_. Like the way Hyunjin’s careful gaze is fixed on his every movement.

“Yeah,” he whimpers, sinking further down into his seat. “I know it sounds ridiculous when you put it that way, but—”

“Seungmin.” Hyunjin interrupts, putting his drink down. “You know you can tell me anything, right?” 

_There it is. You expected that._

Seungmin furrows his brows, frustrated. “You don’t believe me.”

Hyunjin sighs, then he continues stirring his drink. Seungmin watches the straw’s movement; hears the ice crackle against each other. Breathe in deeply. Hold for four seconds. Exhale. Hold for four— 

“Have you been seeing your therapist? If you’re worried about the cost, I can help you pay for it first…”

Seungmin closes his eyes and starts tuning Hyunjin out. He _wishes_ that it was just a fever dream. 

Or maybe even a hallucination. 

_Anything_ but how he’d woken up that morning, head still spinning from his migraine last night, only to find the stupid time-traveller man in his kitchen, glaring at the stove, and his stupid, now awake baby dragon perched carefully on his shoulders. 

Even worse, Minho was in _his_ clothes. His favourite grey hoodie, the one with a heart emitting wi-fi signals. Seungmin had _saved_ up to buy it. It was fucking expensive. Minho had just taken it from his closet, worn it, and then stood in his kitchen as though he owned this entire place. 

And then— and then, he even had the nerve to ask Seungmin, pointing at the stove: “ _how do you use this thing?_ ”

Seungmin had nearly screamed. He really, genuinely wanted to scream, but then he made the mistake of locking eyes with the stupid baby dragon (why the _fuck_ are its eyes so _big_ even) who blinked lethargically at him, then rested its head on top of Minho’s. 

It was not cute. It was _not_ cute at all!

So he had internally screamed instead. 

And then he taught Minho how to use the stove. 

“...min? Seungmin? Are you still with me?” 

Seungmin jolts, snapping out of his reverie and catches the way Hyunjin’s lips imperceptibly turn downwards into a slight pout. 

“Yeah,” he coughs, aggressively stirring his latte as he tries very hard to not think about how he’s being a disappointment again. Probably. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s fine, I’ll deal with it, you don’t have to help me pay for anything.”

“Seungmin.” There it is again, the concerned frown, the judgmental eyes, no, scratch that, the eyes that Seungmin logically knows is _not_ judging him, but—

“Can we please drop this?” Seungmin pleads.

Hyunjin’s eyes narrow, and Seungmin worries for a moment that his best friend of eleven years is going to try and push it further, but then he simply sighs and launches into a story of how he tried to find the murderer of his favourite China vase that he found shattered on the floor the other day.

  
  


Seungmin doesn’t have work today. 

He sincerely doesn’t want to go home either, now that there’s a whole stranger in it, but the thought of leaving his entire apartment alone with said stranger _and_ his smoke-puffing baby dragon unsettles him enough that he’s nearly running home after hastily bidding goodbye to Hyunjin, who had frowned at him again. 

He tries to erase that image of Hyunjin frowning with Minho burning his apartment down. And that gets him home in record time, fumbling with his keys, one hand shakily twisting his doorknob open.

He closes his eyes, again, praying that it was all a fever dream.

Maybe Seungmin should’ve listened to his Catholic mother and been more religious, because he opens his door to Lee Minho, still in his favourite hoodie, sitting comfortably on his couch and feeding little pieces of toast to the baby dragon in his lap.

“You’re still here,” he manages to say, voice straining. 

“Oh, you are back,” Minho greets, barely affording him a glance before turning his attention back to his dragon. “Where would I go?”

Seungmin doesn’t bother replying; simply drags his feet to the couch and sinks down heavily on the other side of it. As far away from Minho as possible.

For a while, the only sound in the room is the dragon licking the toast off Minho’s fingers. 

“How was your outing?” Minho asks quietly, keeping the baby dragon in his lap occupied with a small game. 

_It was terrible,_ Seungmin thinks, as he watches the dragon chase after Minho’s hand, _nobody I talk to with a sane mind would believe that you and your dumb dragon exists and my best friend thinks I’m in need of psychiatric help again. Could’ve been better._

“It was fine,” he eventually says. 

“That is nice.”

Silence falls again. 

It’s not that Seungmin isn’t used to silence; he is _very_ well acquainted with silence, having lived alone for years. 

That, however, makes it even more jarring now that there’s additional sounds that he’s picking up on, like Minho’s slow, steady breathing, or the dragon’s occasional snorts of air. 

“So when are you guys leaving again?” He blurts. 

“When we are ready,” is all Minho says, as he brings the dragon closer to him. “When the energy is enough and the entrance opens again. Could be weeks. Could be months. Could be days.” 

Seungmin takes a deep breath, then repeats, “when your time-travelling portal thing opens again.” 

“Yes.”

“You guys will be staying here until then.” 

“Mm.”

“And you can’t go anywhere else because this exact spot has the right combination of whatever magical conditions you need for the portal to open again.” 

“Yes,” Minho nods, stroking the dragon’s back, causing it to purr loudly. Seungmin has to physically restrain himself from jumping at the sound, but it doesn’t stop the goosebumps travelling up his arms. “Besides, you have been quite accepting of this situation. I do not want to risk going anywhere else and putting Bokie in danger.”

Seungmin closes his eyes again. _This is real. This is very real._ “Okay. Alright. I’m… I’m going to bed.”

“It is barely noon,” Minho actually looks startled, for once, his calm demeanour slipping off, “you are not eating lunch?”

“I’m going to bed,” Seungmin repeats, getting up and heading towards his room. “Please don’t set the kitchen on fire.”

  
  


_“We are really sorry for intruding,” the stranger had said, quickly wrapping the blanket around the creature that he was carrying. Relief washed across his features, briefly, when the dragon stopped trembling as much as before._

_The stranger turned back to Seungmin, holding out a hand as he balanced the dragon with his other, “sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Lee Minho, and I am a time-traveller. And this is Yongbokie.”_

_Seungmin shook his hand automatically, before the words Minho said dawned upon him. Then: “you’re a_ what _?”_

_“A time-traveller,” Minho had replied, with ease, as though being a time-traveller was as common as being a barista at Starbucks, “and your place happened to be where the exit is.”_

_Seungmin simply gaped at them._

_“Sorry,” Minho added on, cradling the dragon tightly in his arms, “if you do not mind, can we use your place as a temporary shelter? We are kind of on the run.”_

From what? _Seungmin had wanted to ask,_ are you dangerous? _but Minho had simply elbowed past him into his apartment without waiting for him to agree._

_And that was how Lee Minho and his baby dragon intruded upon Seungmin’s apartment, and by association, his life._

  
  


**Step 2: Give your baby dragon adequate sunlight.**

“Bokie needs sunlight,” Minho declares, right after Seungmin steps out of the shower a few mornings later. 

“Just put him by the window,” Seungmin mutters, wiping his feet dry on the rug outside his bathroom. He heads straight for the kitchen, about to make himself a quick coffee since he’s nearly running late for work, but finds his water bottle already sitting on the counter, filled, accompanied by a mug of still-steaming coffee. “Oh. Thanks.”

“You are welcome,” Minho comments, swinging by the kitchen, Bokie— as he’s affectionately named the baby dragon— sitting on his shoulders as usual. “And Bokie is _not_ a plant. He cannot stay indoors all the time.”

 _What happened to being on the run,_ Seungmin wonders dryly. He blows lightly on his coffee, trying to cool it a little, before taking a tentative sip. 

“Well?” Minho says, leaning against the doorway, blinking at Seungmin expectantly.

Seungmin is sure that this is still the same instant coffee mix he has stashed in one of the kitchen shelves, but for some reason, it’s _much_ better, and tastes like an actual drink instead of the diluted-powder-mixed-with-hot-water taste he always gets. 

“Could’ve been better,” he replies instead, shrugging nonchalantly as he finishes the rest of his coffee. 

“I meant bringing Bokie out,” Minho deadpans, looking thoroughly unimpressed. 

“Oh.” Seungmin quickly rinses his mug in the sink, dries it off, then stashes it back with all the other cups. “No.”

He grabs his bottle and tries to leave, but Minho narrows his eyes and blocks his exit. “I was not asking for permission.”

“And I’m not letting you go out with the dragon like that,” Seungmin huffs, trying to skirt around Minho to leave, but fails when Minho matches him step for step. “For fuck’s sake, can you— I’m running late!”

Minho continues to block the exit adamantly, eyes flaring. “Not until you tell me why.”

 _Breathe in. Hold for four. Breathe out. Hold for four._ Seungmin checks the time on his phone; seven forty-eight. He’s already late. 

On hindsight, honestly, there could’ve been much better ways to explain to your local stupid time-traveller man why going outdoors in a universe where dragons don’t actually exist is a bad idea, but Seungmin’s brain just resonates the biggest _fuck this shit!_ as he slams his bottle back onto the counter.

Minho startles, and even the dragon shrinks back, curling its claws tightly on the fabric of Seungmin’s— _his_ high school baseball team hoodie that Minho is currently donning.

“Alright,” Seungmin fumes, glaring at Minho. To his credit, Minho doesn’t back down, but holds his gaze. “Alright. Let me tell you why it’s a fucking bad idea. First of all, I’ll remind you that dragons don’t fucking _exist_ in this universe.” 

Minho’s jaw clenches, if only slightly.

“You want to know what’s gonna happen if you go out there with your dragon out in the open? People are going to stare. They’re going to take pictures, videos, whatever. And this shit _will_ spread. And then people are going to take your fucking dragon away from you. And probably run experiments and cut him open and all the terrible things you can ever imagine—”

At this, Minho actually flinches, but he doesn’t interrupt Seungmin’s angry tirade, so he simply continues;

“—and the moment you open your mouth, people will already _know_ that you’re not from this area. Or from _any_ area, seriously, you speak like a grandfather. And nobody wears hoods like _that_ , you’re not supposed to tighten it all the way and, and even tie a fucking _ribbon_ underneath—”

Minho’s expression remains staunchly impassive as he pulls the ribbon free, letting the initially tightened hood around his head fall off.

“—so yeah, unless you want to get yourself questioned or arrested and your dragon taken away from you or whoever’s chasing you down to find you then no, you are _not_ fucking going out. Not right now and not without me.”

Seungmin ends his ramble with a harder glare and a scowl, and he waits, expecting Minho to flare up and disagree. 

However, Minho’s expression remains cool, as he says, “is that all?” 

The dragon peeks its head out from behind Minho’s, and Seungmin instantly deflates. 

“I’ll think of something,” he eventually mumbles, “you just. Stay here. Don’t go out. And don’t set the kitchen on fire.”

  
  
  


“—so I was wondering if you could try harmonising with Jisung’s line, at two forty-three, maybe like a third below this note?” 

Seungmin had arrived a whole hour late for work; which, honestly, was just a scheduled recording session with Bang Chan, a small but growing music producer and long-time friend. Chan, being Chan, had waved it off and said it was fine, since Seungmin had dropped a message earlier on and he had other tracks to work on anyway.

He scans his lyric sheet for the line that Chan is pointing out, humming noncommittally as he highlights it, adding a messy arrow downwards. “Okay. I’ll give it a go.”

Chan scrubs the track to about ten seconds before the stated part, counts off for Seungmin, and then plays the track.

It’s a sentimental ballad track, something that Seungmin would consider himself slightly more confident in, but as he sings the line ( _never say goodbye, because you and I are one_ ), his voice falls flat, and he’s quiet and cringing even before the line ends.

“Sorry,” Seungmin breathes out, drawing a few more angry, yellow downward arrows on his paper. _Good job, Seungmin. Now Chan is going to judge you and give you even lesser harmonies and adlibs to cover—_

“Something bothering you?” Chan asks kindly, pausing the track and interrupting his thoughts. The studio abruptly fades into silence, the heavy beats and mocking inner voice still ringing slightly in Seungmin’s ears.

He sighs, capping his highlighter shut so he stops vandalising his lyric sheet. He sighs again, and the knowing smile on Chan’s face just grows bigger. _No harm done if I ask, right?_

So he sighs (again), and asks, “hyung, hypothetically, if a friend wanted to bring his pet out for a walk, but it’s a really rare pet, and he doesn’t want others to notice, what should I do?”

“Oh, like an exotic pet?”

Seungmin grimaces. “Yeah, something like that.”

Chan hums, rubbing his hands together as he thinks. “Well, firstly, I hope it’s not an illegal pet, because that could get you guys into real trouble.” 

Seungmin’s throat tightens, and he barely croaks out, “haha, yeah, don’t worry, it’s just exotic. Not illegal. Not at all.”

_Dragons technically can’t be illegal since the law doesn’t even take them into consideration. Right? Right._

Chan gives him a look, the _I know you’re hiding something_ look, but to Seungmin’s relief, doesn’t question it any further. “I’d probably try and conceal the pet in one of those pet carriers when bringing them out.”

_Right. Right. Why didn’t I think of that? I even helped Hyunjin carry Kkami to the vet in one of those before!_

“Speaking of which, I think I left one here when Changbin brought Berry over to the studio the other time.”

Seungmin’s eyes widen. “Wait—” 

But Chan’s already crawling under the table, rummaging in his stash of stuff underneath; he eventually emerges with a slightly worn-down and beaten, but still very much intact pet carrier in his hands. 

“Really?” Seungmin gasps, just to make sure. 

Chan pushes the carrier into his hands. “It’s a little dusty, so you should wash it first, but it’ll work.”

Seungmin stares at the carrier in his lap. “Hyung, I—”

“If you’re going to apologise or say you don’t deserve it or you feel bad or something along the lines, then save it,” Chan grins, waving a hand to dismiss whatever Seungmin’s about to say, “if you _really_ want to make it up to me, then let’s get this recording done by today, aite?”

  
  


On hindsight, Seungmin should’ve also asked Chan how he would solve a hypothetical situation of accidentally fighting and insulting your new involuntary roommate, because it would’ve saved him all the trouble of standing in front of his _own_ apartment, palms sweating, not knowing what to expect. 

“You are— you’re back,” Minho greets, first thing when Seungmin opens the door, mouth dry with dread. 

Seungmin clears his throat awkwardly as he toes off his shoes and steps into the apartment, pet carrier in his hands. “Um, about this morning, I—”

“It is fine,” Minho cuts him off. “I thought about what you said. You are right.” 

A painfully awkward silence as Seungmin thinks of what to say. Minho doesn’t fidget, doesn’t move at all from his position on the couch, where he’s seemingly staring into space, which makes things so much worse. 

Being blunt and straightforward used to be one of Seungmin’s biggest strengths, but now he even struggles to verbalise the apology that’s been occupying his thoughts the entire day. 

Eventually, he swallows, and says, “I shouldn’t have been so rude to you. Sorry about that.”

Minho simply hums in acknowledgment. 

The awkward silence continues for a bit before Seungmin remembers what he’s holding in his hands, and asks, “where’s Bokie?”

“He is— he’s sleeping.”

“You’re changing the way you speak,” Seungmin observes. 

Minho, for how calm and collected he was initially; actually bristles at that. “ _You_ told me to change the way I speak!”

“Well, yeah, you sounded too formal and put together!”

For a moment, Seungmin winces at the way his tone escalates, almost like he’s itching to pick another fight. For a moment, Seungmin thinks that Minho’s going to blow up in his face, actually retaliate this time, but the glare on his face melts off into an impassive stare. 

“I’m tired,” is what Minho declares instead. “Stop talking to me.”

 _Me too,_ Seungmin thinks, but instead, he ends up mumbling, “we’re literally acting like a dumb divorced couple.”

Too bad, Minho hears it. “What is that?”

“Never mind,” Seungmin dismisses, finally setting the carrier down on the floor. “Can you wake—”

“Tell me,” Minho insists, pulling himself up to his full height. Which should not be very threatening to Seungmin, who still wins out at half a head taller, but he gives up anyway.

“You know marriage? Like when two people get together to form a family?” 

Minho nods, still completely unaware of where the conversation is heading towards. 

“A divorced couple is when these two married people separate. Usually happens if they fight a lot and stuff. Or if the couple is incompatible.”

“What?” Surprisingly, Minho actually flusters, and Seungmin observes his ears rapidly reddening. “ _What?_ We are not— we can’t—”

Seungmin should also have been flustered at how Minho’s only takeaway was the implication that they were _together_ , which, admittedly, he didn’t even realise when he made that statement. 

But his mind is blanking and he no longer wants to think. Marriages also probably meant something much different wherever and whenever Minho came from. 

So instead, he asks, “which era did you come from?”

“Joseon,” Minho answers, without skipping a beat.

“Jesus Christ,” Seungmin whispers in horror. 

“Now what’s _that_? Je— what?”

“Um, it’s some holy dude that people worship and pray to. Or something. I don’t really know how to explain it.”

“Oh, that’s just like Bokie!” Minho’s face lights up, briefly, before he seems to remember something about the atmosphere that they’re in and abruptly wipes the smile off his face. “Before— never mind.”

“People _worshipped_ Bokie?” Seungmin blurts out. His migraine is definitely coming back. _This man took what is the equivalent of their God away and ran to_ our _time. This man stole a whole God! And never mind? What did he mean by never mind?_

“People worship anything,” Minho points out, shrugging, oblivious to the internal meltdown that Seungmin is struggling with. “And, have you seen Bokie? He deserves to be worshipped!”

“You’re so whipped,” Seungmin eventually mutters, almost rolling his eyes.

Minho looks confused. “I have not been whipped.”

“That’s not what it— forget it,” Seungmin sighs, picking the carrier up again. “I found a way we can bring Bokie out. For the sunshine and whatever.” 

Minho glances at the carrier, and Seungmin sees a plethora of emotions cycle through this expressions; from confusion, to mild understanding, and then—

“We’re not putting Bokie in a cage!” Minho says, sounding absolutely horrified. 

“This isn’t a _cage_ ,” Seungmin retorts. Not that _that_ was very convincing, because admittedly it does resemble one. “People here bring their pets out in these. It’s perfect to hide Bokie and not look suspicious.”

“Are you sure,” Minho deadpans.

“Are you the one living in this era or me,” Seungmin deadpans right back.

When Minho’s shoulders slump a little in defeat, Seungmin allows himself a tiny, victorious smile.

  
  


Though, they hit their first roadblock after they’ve finally gotten the carrier properly washed and dried—

Bokie absolutely refuses to get into the carrier. 

The dragon tries poking its head into the carrier; once, twice, and then all but scampers away from it.

“Bokie is afraid of the dark,” Minho explains quietly.

“Oh,” Seungmin mumbles, equally quietly. For a moment, he thinks that it’s all Minho is going to say, and he starts thinking of a way that they can possibly solve this so Bokie can get into the carrier, but Minho shifts, and continues:

“It’s because the rioters— the hunters, they always came out at night,” Minho sighs, holding out his arms towards Bokie. The dragon makes a small, chirping sound as it crawls right into Minho’s lap and rests its head on his leg. “Dragons can’t see well at night. It is easier to hunt and kill them then.”

Seungmin feels something cold, something sinister wash over him. “Dragons were being hunted? Why?”

“You know humans,” Minho replies, matter-of-factly, as he gently strokes Bokie’s back, causing the dragon to purr. “They hate things they do not understand. Then they try to get rid of it.”

“That’s dumb,” Seungmin mumbles. He glances over at the tiny, trembling creature and immediately feels guilty, reaching out a hand. “Can I?”

Minho nods, then inches closer towards him so that he can pet the dragon more comfortably. 

Seungmin’s hand hovers, as he hesitates for a bit, then decides to copy what Minho has been doing. 

Maybe it was because he’d lowkey expected Bokie to feel slimy, like a fish, or really rough, with the scales and all, so he’s pleasantly surprised when he’s able to glide his hand down Bokie’s shimmering back, which feels all smooth and nice, almost like silk. 

Bokie is also warm, _extremely_ warm, almost as though he’s a bundle of heat packs stacked together. But it’s not uncomfortable; in fact it gives much of the opposite effect— as Seungmin strokes down Bokie’s back, feeling the gentle rise-and-fall with each breath the dragon takes and absorbing some of the warmth, he starts to understand a little why Minho is always petting Bokie. 

It feels nice. He can almost sense his residual anxiety slowly seeping out as he matches his breathing with Bokie’s; slow and steady, the warmth reliable. 

And then— Seungmin can affirm that this is the exact moment he realises that he now can and will drop everything and anything to ensure the tiny dragon’s happiness, barely after a week of knowing them— Bokie purrs under his touch. 

He snaps his hand back, more out of awed shock than anything, causing Bokie to chase after it and butt it with his nose. 

“Sorry,” Seungmin finds himself smiling, “I’ll get right back to it.” 

“See,” Minho says smugly, having observed the whole exchange. “Now you know why people worshipped Bokie.”

Seungmin doesn’t say anything, just gives Minho a pointed stare in response. 

The second time they try to coax Bokie into the carrier ends up slightly worse. This time, the dragon doesn’t just run away from it, but curls itself tightly around Seungmin’s leg, whimpering and trembling. 

“I guess he likes you better now,” Minho laughs. 

(Sometime in the future, Seungmin realises that this was the first time that Minho had felt comfortable around him to laugh, something he will learn later that is seen as vulnerable by the other.)

“I guess,” Seungmin gives a small smile of his own, bending down and trying to detach the dragon from his leg. All that happens, however, is Bokie detaching itself from Seungmin’s leg, but flying straight into his arms in exchange. 

He giggles as he pets Bokie’s head while holding him tight, but Bokie continues to tremble and shudder.

Without much thought, Seungmin starts singing softly: “ _you are my sunshine, my only sunshine..._ ”

Bokie purrs, again, nuzzling its head into Seungmin’s neck; and as Seungmin continues singing quietly, the trembles start to die down, and the steady breathing returns. 

Eventually, Bokie’s breathing slows down enough to the point where Seungmin realises that the baby dragon’s fallen asleep in his arms.

“He’s sleeping!” Seungmin whispers, happily and a little too excitedly, turning a little to show Minho what he considers a life achievement. 

And then he stops, smile freezing, because he’s forgotten that Minho is barely an acquaintance, much less a _friend_ , and maybe he’s overstepping some boundaries by suddenly being friendly after their constant back-and-forth, or maybe Minho thinks he’s being fake, or—

All those thoughts get cut off when Minho only smiles widely in response, and says, “well, then let’s put the baby back to bed.”

  
  


**Step 3: Do NOT feed your baby dragon milk.**

Seungmin, unfortunately, learns this the hard way.

The learning comes in the form of a very red-faced, frantic Minho slamming his room door open, almost screaming: “what did you _feed_ Bokie?”

Seungmin straightens up, pulling out his earphones and gaping at Minho’s frenzied state. “What?”

“You fed Bokie something,” Minho hisses, pointing an accusatory finger at him. 

“I… did?” Seungmin frowns, mentally retracing his activities throughout the morning. Then he remembers. “The milk?” 

“The _milk!_ ” Minho screeches, flinging his arms. “ _The_ milk! You fed Bokie _milk_?”

“I wasn’t supposed to?” His frown deepens. Somehow, his annoyance at being randomly yelled at completely overrides the concern of what actually happened to the baby dragon.

“ _No?_ ” Minho snaps, voice escalating. “Who feeds _milk_ to dragons?” 

“I didn’t know,” Seungmin says flatly, but this seems to be the wrong answer, because it only makes Minho fume even more. 

Even though there’s a small voice of logic at the back of his head telling him that he _should_ have checked something like food preferences or allergies with Minho beforehand, the louder voice, one laced with complete annoyance, points out that he’s just trying to help. And there was no need for Minho to get so pissy over it. 

Unless, of course, Bokie was in actual, physical danger.

Though, Seungmin rationalises that whatever happened with the milk can’t be too serious if Minho has the time to come and be angry with him instead of resuscitating Bokie—

“You _didn’t_ know,” Minho cuts through his thoughts, mocking with barely concealed rage. “You _didn’t know_! Well if you didn’t know, then maybe you should not have done anything!”

“Are you going to tell me what even happened to Bokie?” 

Without hesitation, Minho straight up yells, “he’s been fucking releasing pheromones the whole day!” 

There’s a short, stunned silence as Seungmin processes what he’s just been told. 

“You mean he’s farting,” he deadpans. 

“You— he—” Minho’s face actually reddens even _more_ , before he finally spits out, “you are so fucking insufferable!”

Then he spins on his heel, stomps out of Seungmin’s room, and makes sure to slam the door on his way out.

  
  


When evening rolls around, the smaller voice of logic eventually wins out and Seungmin fully acknowledges that he definitely had _some_ fault in the matter. 

_You are so fucking insufferable!_

That honestly stung, but yeah, he agrees. Maybe he should’ve been more concerned when Minho first barged into his room, angry. Maybe Minho shouldn’t have been yelling incoherently first. Maybe they’re both at fault. Maybe no one is at fault. 

Maybe they just need to work it out and communicate better. Like adults. Although he doesn’t even know how old Minho technically is.

He’d spent most of his day sitting in his room, with his door half-open, listening to Minho being loudly angry at almost _everything_. 

One particular time, he was even cursing out the trash can lid for not staying open long enough for him to throw whatever he had to throw— at which point Seungmin had decided that it was pointless to approach him until he had simmered down a little more. 

Bokie ended up crawling into Seungmin’s room and onto his bed, curling up on his pillow for a nap. 

“Did I really screw up that bad?” Seungmin had asked the baby dragon, while giving him headpats.

Bokie only purred in response.

Turns out Seungmin didn’t have to think so much, because Minho eventually turns up at his door, looking impassive as ever, Bokie’s carrier in his hands. 

Seungmin only stares at him in a mix of disbelief, fear, and wonder.

“What?” Minho says, sounding as though nothing had happened and he didn’t just call Seungmin insufferable a few hours back. “It’s time for Bokie’s walk.”

“You…” Seungmin starts off, slowly crawling up from his sprawled position on the bed. “You’re okay?” 

Minho tilts his head quizzically. “Why would I not be?”

“The milk.” 

Minho’s lips purse. “Are you going to apologise about it?” 

Seungmin pauses. He _was_ actually, but the way that Minho is pulling the apology out of him ticks him off somehow. He’s about to say something sharp, maybe remind Minho that he was trying to help, when Bokie shifts from his position on Seungmin’s pillow and drops his head onto his hand.

 _Communicate. Like adults._ “Yeah. I was going to.”

“Then I’m good,” Minho nods, hands fidgeting with the carrier’s handle. “And, um. I am sorry too. I should not have yelled at you.” 

“Shouldn’t,” Seungmin automatically corrects, then grimaces. 

“I _shouldn’t_ have yelled at you?” Minho repeats, with a slight smirk on his face. “Is that how you people say it?”

Seungmin flushes in embarrassment, nodding. “Well, uh, I accept your apology.”

“I accept your apology too,” Minho smiles, a little, and Seungmin finds himself smiling a little, too. Then Minho raises the carrier in his hands, and grins, “help me get Bokie in this?”

  
  


“I don’t know anything about you,” Seungmin ponders, glancing at Minho, seated beside him. 

They’re at the park nearest to his apartment, seated on a bench with matching ice americanos in their hands. They’d walked a few rounds prior, with Minho insisting on holding the carrier the whole time even though Seungmin offers to swap over— and now Bokie is fast asleep in his carrier, placed awkwardly between them on the bench, with his daily sunlight meter filled.

He’s _slightly_ jealous of just how much the baby dragon can sleep in a day. 

“I don’t know anything about you either,” Minho shrugs in response.

“Should we do something about that, then?” 

“I don’t know, should we?”

By now, Minho is smirking, deriving some kind of childlike glee from making Seungmin’s life difficult on purpose. 

Seungmin isn’t too sure when they’d gone from two strangers forced to interact with each other to something that felt a little more like slightly closer friends bantering with each other, but he’d take this anytime over them blowing up again from petty arguments.

“Let’s play twenty-one questions,” Seungmin decides, leaning back on the bench and folding his arms. “We just ask each other twenty-one questions. It can be about anything at all.”

“Anything?” Minho asks, and the smirk on his face grows.

Seungmin hopes this doesn’t turn out to be a terrible idea. “Anything,” he confirms.

“Can I start first, then?” Minho says, and when Seungmin gestures for him to go ahead, he straight up shoots with: “Why do you sing so well?” 

Seungmin chokes, almost inhaling half his americano at the unexpectedness of the question. He watches Minho quirk an eyebrow in amusement as he coughs, eventually calming down enough to croak out, “because my parents gave me a nice voice?”

Minho stares at him impassively.

“Fine, it’s kinda what I do for a living.”

“That’s…” Minho quirks an eyebrow. “Not really an answer, but okay. What do you do for a living?”

Seungmin swallows nervously. This question always ended up opening a whole can of worms he’d rather avoid, but since he was the one who suggested this… 

“I’m a backup singer,” he says.

“Backup? What does that mean?”

Seungmin stares at him pointedly. “Are you really going to use one of your questions for that?” 

Minho falters, as he thinks, then shrugs. “Sure, why not?” 

Seungmin sighs. When he suggested that they play twenty-one questions to know each other better, he wasn’t really expecting them to go deep and have a whole heart-to-heart talk, but he also wasn’t expecting… this. 

“Well?” Minho prompts, tapping his fingers impatiently on the bench. 

“Basically someone else sings the whole song. I just sing some parts of it to support them.”

“But why?” Minho leans in, seemingly intrigued. “Why don’t you sing the whole song too?” 

There it is. The can of worms.

 _I wish I could,_ his thoughts supply, mockingly, as Seungmin’s throat constricts again. He takes a long sip of his iced americano. _Would be great if this was alcohol right now._

“I don’t—” he starts off, then sighs, running a hand through his hair. He can sense his heartbeat slowly accelerating again, just from thinking about it; he’s always figured that the way he was so attuned to every slight physical change to his body did him much more harm than good, because it sends his mind into _overdrive_ —

 _Breathe in. Hold four. Breathe out. Hold four._

Minho seems to sense that something is wrong, because his expression softens. “You do not need to share if you don’t want to. It’s your turn to ask questions anyway.” 

Seungmin nods, relieved at Minho giving him an out, but also guilty that he wasn’t able to follow through with an answer. 

“I’m sorry,” he frowns, and Minho waves a hand, dismissing it. Then he straightens up again, because he does have questions that’s been lingering at the back of his mind, ever since Minho let something slip earlier on.

He glances at the pet carrier between them, where the dragon was presumably still curled up and sleeping. 

“You said people worshipped Bokie.” 

Minho nods, affirming his previous statement. But there’s a sharp glint in his eyes, and his gaze is piercing, almost as though he’s warning Seungmin to not tread further. 

“Why did they stop? Why are you guys on the run? Why is he the only dragon left?”

Minho smiles cryptically. “That’s three questions, right?”

Seungmin stops himself from rolling his eyes. “Yup.”

“Well, firstly, I’ve told you before, humans get rid of things they do not understand.”

Seungmin nods, prompting Minho to continue. Minho then provides a brief explanation on dragons’ abilities— how they can transform into humans as they mature, how the bloodline is mostly restricted to royalty, and how dragons are usually rulers of the land. 

Seungmin can’t help but notice Minho subconsciously placing his hand over Bokie’s carrier protectively, even though the expression on his face barely changes.

“Dragon blood also has healing properties,” here, Minho’s smile stiffens, his fingers clenching around the sides of the carrier. “People used to worship dragons because if you were nice to them, they could help cure your illness or whatever.”

Seungmin is almost afraid to ask. “What happened?” 

Minho sighs, leaning back on his chair and closing his eyes. His grip remains firm, if not even tighter, on the carrier. Seungmin keeps quiet, gives him space.

When Minho opens his eyes again, there’s an unexplainable sadness reflected in them, a weariness that can only come from experience. 

“There was an illness going around,” he starts, and Seungmin can already guess where it’s going to go.

Minho’s smile turns sad. “And people were dying left and right. There were simply too many people who needed help. Some people got angry when they didn’t receive help and saw other people getting it, getting better, while their families continued to be sick. So they decided to take the matter into their own hands.” 

“They started hunting dragons,” Seungmin concludes, feeling sick to his stomach. 

Minho nods. “It all happened so fast.”

The sad glint in his eyes remains.

“I’m sorry,” Seungmin says, heart heavy. He reaches over and gives Minho’s hand a light squeeze. 

(Minho’s hand is small— much, much smaller than Seungmin’s; and just the way his own hand envelops Minho’s completely stuns him, but he doesn’t dwell on it, not for too long.)

“Why are you sorry?” Minho glances at Seungmin’s hand, still on top of his, but doesn’t pull away. “You were not— you weren’t a part of it.”

Seungmin opens his mouth, and then closes it, realising he doesn’t really have a concrete answer as to why, even. 

Instead, what he says is: “Is that a question?” 

“You’re seriously insufferable,” Minho rolls his eyes, but without malice this time. “Yes, I’m making it a question. Why are you sorry?”

He hesitates, thinking for a moment. “I guess… I’m sorry that you and Bokie had to experience all that. And that people had to resort to doing terrible things to get out of their suffering. And that I can’t really do much to help.”

“Do you always feel sorry for things that you never knew about? Or have control over?”

Seungmin only shrugs in response. 

“Isn’t that tiring?” Minho frowns.

“Maybe I like to be tired.”

Minho rolls his eyes again. “You are—”

“Seriously insufferable, I know,” Seungmin grins, helping him finish his sentence. 

  
  


By the end of the day, Seungmin learns more about the person that Minho is. Like how his favourite colour is the pink hues of the sunsets and the sunrises, and that his favourite season is autumn because winter is too cold for him. 

Or how he’d found out that Minho is, physically, two years older than him, with Minho gloating over the fact that Seungmin now has to call him _hyung_. 

He learns about the recurring nightmares, and of the sleepless nights, very much like his own— they’re more similar than he’d expected, Seungmin realises, and this fact alone makes him feel much closer to Minho than before. 

  
  


**Step 4: Teach your baby dragon tricks.**

“What are you buying these for?” Hyunjin asks, voice laced with suspicion, as he watches Seungmin attempt to make a choice between a red and a blue bone-shaped chewy toy for dogs. 

“Friend of mine just adopted a puppy,” Seungmin says smoothly, then spins around and holds up both of his choices. “Red or blue?”

“Who? Is it someone I know? Is it a new friend?”

“I’ll get both, then,” Seungmin decides cheerfully, placing both in his shopping basket, completely disregarding Hyunjin. 

“Are you hiding something from me?” Hyunjin is persistent, Seungmin can give him that at least, as he follows him through the aisles of the pet store, stopping when Seungmin stops to examine different brands of dog treats. 

“Would these work on him?” Seungmin ponders out loud, picking up one of the smaller bags of treats and scanning through the nutritional information. _No dairy._ After the whole fiasco with the milk two weeks ago, Seungmin had made sure to ask Minho for a whole list of things Bokie couldn’t eat.

Turns out, it’s just milk and dairy-related products they have to avoid. Other than that, Bokie pretty much ate everything they ate, just carefully diced into extremely small bite-sized pieces.

“Well, if it’s edible, then it should work on him,” Seungmin completes his train of thought, then puts the bag of treats in his basket. “Right, Jinnie?”

Hyunjin’s pale. “Are you planning to feed your new friend _dog_ treats?”

“What? No! It’s for B— the new puppy.”

“You’re hiding something from me,” Hyunjin concludes, pouting as he folds his arms crossly. 

_To be fair, I didn’t,_ Seungmin thinks, examining some of those squeaky toy balls stashed in front of them. _I told you everything!_

He starts whistling a merry tune instead to drown out Hyunjin’s whining.

  
  


Seungmin ends his shopping expedition at the pet store with a whole bunch of new dog toys, some dog treats, and a rather ruffled and whiny Hyunjin.

The whiny Hyunjin is easily settled; he sends him off with his favourite earl grey milk tea as a treat, then skips his way home with the bags in his hands, humming the melody of Changbin’s new project that he was asked to feature on.

The reason why Seungmin had bought the dog treats was this: recently, he’d learnt that Bokie could be _trained_. Like a puppy.

This discovery was entirely accidental; Seungmin was just getting Bokie to stop flapping his wings at the table during mealtimes, so he’d held them shut (gently), sternly said _sit_ , and then only fed him lunch once he was all settled down.

Bokie had learned extremely quickly. 

The next afternoon when Seungmin told him to _sit_ , he’d folded his tiny wings and plopped himself down on the table, and then blinked at Seungmin expectantly with his big, round eyes.

And that was when Seungmin hatched his grand plan to teach Bokie how to do tricks. Like a puppy. Of course, in Minho’s absence.

Minho had started going out more frequently in the afternoons, leaving Bokie in the apartment with Seungmin if he was at home, or taking the dragon along in his carrier if Seungmin had to go to work. He never shared what he did outside, and Seungmin never asked, although he was slightly curious.

And so, during these afternoons, Seungmin spent his time teaching Bokie tricks. 

He’d gotten Bokie to roll and spin on command in the past week, and was in the middle of training Bokie how to play dead whenever he says _bang!_ when Minho comes home earlier than expected.

“What are you doing?” Minho questions, looking half-horrified, half-stunned at the scene in front of him.

The scene being: Seungmin pointing a finger gun at Bokie, yelling _BANG!_ , and Bokie rolled onto his back, tummy up and wings spread. 

“Teaching Bokie stuff,” Seungmin hastily replies, retracting his hand and straightening up. He clears his throat, then mumbles, “Bokie _sit_.”

The dragon does as told, clambering up from his original prone position, sits, all nicely and prettily, and waits for Seungmin to reward him.

Minho’s gaze flickers over to the slobbered-over chew toys on the floor; as he does this, Seungmin sneaks Bokie a treat. 

“What are these?” He gestures at Seungmin’s new (but quickly used) pet shop hauls.

Seungmin fakes a cough. “Um. Puppy toys.”

Minho visibly blanches right there and then.

A beat of silence. And then, “Bokie is not your personal pet.”

They no longer bickered the way they did when they first met, but somehow it had been nearly impossible for them to stop being snarky at each other— so a ghost of their bickering remained and turned into some weird kind of playful, snarky banter. 

Seungmin thinks he’s developed some kind of radar to sense when Minho is messing with him and when Minho is actually annoyed. 

And right now, there’s no crease in his brow and Minho only looks slightly exasperated. 

So Seungmin replies, playfully: “This is _my_ personal apartment, though.” 

“Are you implying everything in here is yours?”

Seungmin grins. 

Minho groans. “I can’t stand your shit.”

Another thing about Minho that Seungmin secretly admired was how fast he learns and picks up new things. It’s barely been a few weeks since he’d arrived, but he’s already mostly gotten rid of his strangely formal speak, taken over Seungmin’s kitchen _and_ also learnt how to use his laptop to browse the web.

 _I’ve seen these things before on other trips,_ Minho had said, defensively, _just never stayed long enough to need to use them or change my way of speaking._

“Next thing I know, you’re going to start feeding him dog food.” 

“Hahaha,” Seungmin winces, subtly trying to hide the bag of opened treats from Minho’s view.

However, Minho, observant as ever, immediately catches on. “You what.” 

Seungmin shrinks under Minho’s icy stare; he’s not stupid, so he knows when something is a lost cause and also, well, Seungmin can’t lie.

“It’s completely edible,” is what he tries, pulling the bag of treats out again as he takes one out. “See.” 

Seungmin pops the treat in his mouth. 

Frankly, it tastes like shit. 

But Seungmin never concedes to a challenge, even if it’s admittedly self-imposed, and keeps the straightest face he can as he swallows, what is pretty much the equivalent of mushy cardboard, whole.

Then, to further drive his point in, he opens his mouth wide to show Minho that dog food is, unsurprisingly, edible.

What Seungmin expects is for Minho to concede, or maybe acknowledge that fine, dog food is not harmful for Bokie at all. 

What he does _not_ expect is for Minho to grab the dog treats, open it, and then eat one himself.

He sees the exact moment when Minho realises that the treat is not at all delectable, at least not for the human tongue. Seungmin barely manages to keep his laughter in when the elder’s expression starts straining as Minho, too, was not one to back down from a competition that’d suddenly existed between them the moment he reached out for the dog treats.

When Minho starts coughing, though, Seungmin bursts out laughing anyway, and laughs his entire way to the kitchen as he fetches Minho a glass of water. 

“Kim Seungmin,” Minho wheezes, a while later, empty glass of water in his hand, “you amaze me every single day.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to try it,” Seungmin retorts. The image of Minho’s slightly constipated expression as he tried to swallow the treat resurfaces in his mind, and he ends up giggling again, much to Minho’s ire. “Well. It really _is_ edible.”

Minho reaches over for one of the stranded chew toys, and chucks it at Seungmin with surprising accuracy. It hits Seungmin’s chest with a loud, comical squeak, and the two of them share a short glance before dissolving into laughter.

“Show me what you’ve taught Bokie,” Minho eventually asks, when they’ve settled down a little, wiping a stray tear from his eye.

So Seungmin does. He claps twice to catch Bokie’s attention, and shows Minho how Bokie can _sit_ , _roll over_ , _spin_ , and the latest addition from the afternoon: _bang!_

Minho reacts with barely concealed excitement with each successful trick that Bokie pulls off, eyes shining with some sort of pride and also a little twinge of wistfulness that Seungmin catches. 

He passes Minho a treat to feed Bokie, to which the elder happily obliges, cooing as the baby dragon nuzzles his head against his hand. 

“This reminds me of a puppy I raised back home,” Minho says, giving Bokie a good and nice headpat. 

“You have a puppy?” Seungmin gasps.

“That was before all this time-travelling shit. I haven’t seen _Haengbok_ in years,” Minho chuckles darkly. “I don’t even know if she’s still alive.” 

“Oh.” He shuts his mouth abruptly.

“Let’s not talk about that,” Minho clears his throat, pulling Bokie onto his lap. Seungmin nods, and starts juggling two of Bokie’s new toy balls in a blatant attempt to lighten the atmosphere. 

“So,” he asks, changing the topic per Minho’s request, “what’s your favourite time-travelling story?” 

Minho snorts. “Time-travelling is not something _fancy_ for me. It’s an obligation. Something we do because of our bloodline. Our family name.”

“Oh,” Seungmin grimaces, dropping one of the toys, the squeak when it hits the floor further pronouncing the slight awkward silence that follows.

“However,” Minho continues, huffing slightly as he picks the toy up and examines it. “You can say this job is the most interesting by far.”

“Why?” 

“Usually we just transport artifacts or information across time,” Minho explains, squeezing the toy. It lets out a long, drawn-out squeak, and both of them watch the toy reinflate before Minho continues, “travelling through time to save a species from extinction is quite unique.”

“I see,” Seungmin says, now fiddling with the remaining toy in his hands but trying not to accidentally squeeze it. “Do you like what you’re doing?”

“It’s okay, I guess,” Minho frowns. 

“Doesn’t it get lonely sometimes?”

The moment those words leave his mouth, Minho shoots him a sharp look and Seungmin withers, instantly regretting saying anything at all.

“Of course it does,” Minho mumbles, barely loud enough for Seungmin to catch. “I have to leave everything behind every single time and start over in worlds that are not the slightest same from those I left from. Of course it gets lonely.”

Seungmin doesn’t know what to say. _Obviously_ , his mind mocks. _Just because you guys shared some fun facts with each other doesn’t mean you’re all close and chummy now, Kim Seungmin._

Minho, somehow sensing that he’s driven Seungmin into a corner, throws him an exit, an escape route, as he sighs, excessively loudly, “are you stupid? Why would you ask something like that?”

“I’m sorry,” Seungmin sighs, deflating. “I guess I was being stupid.” 

Minho rolls his eyes, and that’s signal enough to Seungmin that he’s over it. “Enough about me. What about you? Do _you_ like what you’re doing?”

Seungmin thinks about his job. 

“I don’t know,” he eventually admits. “It wasn’t really something I actually thought I’d be doing.”

Minho tilts his head. “What did you think you’d be doing?”

“A boring, office job,” Seungmin snorts. “Something that earns me a lot of money, probably. Like what most people out there do.”

“You don’t seem like someone who cares a lot about money,” Minho notes. Bokie’s already fallen asleep in his lap.

“No,” Seungmin agrees. “But I guess people expected more out of me? I was the typical prototype of a successful son: good grades, top of the school, lots of opportunities lined up. Probably on my way to becoming some bigshot at a company or something. But then I ended up like this.”

He vaguely gestures around himself.

Minho hums. “Does like _this_ ,” he imitates Seungmin’s gestures, “mean you’ve failed?”

 _Yes_ , the voice in his head answers. “I guess I’m doing something that ticks off some of my life goals.”

“And what’s that?” 

“Wow,” Seungmin whistles, attempting to divert the question, “we’re going to talk deep today, huh?” 

He sighs in defeat when Minho shoots him a glare, warning him to stay on topic. Then he sighs again, finally sharing, “I always wanted to do something that makes me feel like I matter, out of so many people in the world. And singing songs kinda fulfills that, a little. When they’re published and on the Internet, they’ll always be there, as long as the Internet still exists. It’s not much, but at least I have pieces of myself out there, proving that I existed.”

“That’s quite nice,” Minho gives him a sincere smile. “You might feel like your existence is not much, just yet, but it’s something permanent.” 

Then his smile turns slightly wry. “The complete opposite of me, huh.” 

“Don’t say that,” Seungmin frowns. “Your existence is important too.”

“Yeah, I mean, I’m out here, supposedly doing important things like saving a whole species from extinction, only to be forgotten,” Minho jokes, but it doesn’t mask the slight, bitter edge that colours his words.

“I’ll remember you,” Seungmin says, frown increasing.

“You say that,” Minho argues, “but when it’s time for me to go, you’ll forget. Everyone forgets.” 

“I _won’t,_ ” Seungmin insists, now glaring at Minho. 

“How are you so sure?” 

Seungmin blurts out, “since you said songs are permanent, I’ll just write a song about you and sing it.” 

Then he processes whatever just came out of his mouth. 

Before he can properly fluster and take back his words, Minho whispers, eyes wide, “you would?”

“I’m not saying it again,” Seungmin retorts, and rolls his eyes, trying to downplay everything he’d just said. “It’s just a song. Nothing big.” 

“Guess you’re not so insufferable after all, Kim Seungmin,” Minho teases, mood considerably lighter than it was moments before. 

Later, he would hear Minho quietly add on a small _thank you_.

  
  


Seungmin isn’t exactly the lightest sleeper, on all counts, but somehow he’d become more sensitive to odd sounds at night after learning that Minho struggled with nightmares. 

Initially, he pretends to not know anything, assuming that Minho will be even more upset if Seungmin approaches him like he’s a damsel in distress, but as the days go by, he can’t really bring himself to ignore the gradually darkening circles under Minho’s tired eyes.

One particular night, however, Minho yells loud enough for Seungmin to scramble off his bed and skid over to the guest room, throwing the door open without a second thought. 

He doesn’t have to wake Minho up, because the latter is already sitting upright on his bed, breathing heavily— he hasn’t even noticed Seungmin coming into his room.

“Are you okay?” Seungmin asks, hesitantly, hand still on the doorknob.

The next few actions happen in rapid progress: Minho jumps at Seungmin’s voice, whips his head around so quickly, then tenses up even more when he realises that he’s been caught in a vulnerable moment. 

In that instant, Seungmin sees him try to smooth out his expression, attempting to look nonchalant, as he nods a _yes_ to Seungmin’s question. 

“Do you want to… sleep together?” Seungmin offers.

Minho stares at him.

“What?” He eventually blurts out in response.

“If you’re thinking of something weird, _no_ ,” Seungmin narrows his eyes. Minho is pale; paler than usual, forehead glistening with sweat, and looking extremely worn out and tired. He sees the way Minho’s fingers curl tightly around his blankets. “I meant like, just for company.” 

Minho relaxes a little, albeit still looking very guarded. He shifts to make some space for Seungmin on his bed; and as Seungmin approaches closer, he notices that Minho’s still shaking from his previous nightmare.

“Do _not_ cuddle,” Minho warns, clutching onto his blankets even more tightly. “It’s weird.”

Seungmin almost wants to roll his eyes, as he sits down next to him, “I don’t do cuddles.” 

However, he does do this: he tugs the blanket out of Minho’s left hand, then reaches over and holds it. 

“What are you doing?” Minho hisses, looking scandalised, but he doesn’t pull his hand away. 

“Holding your hand,” Seungmin replies, matter-of-factly, and to drive in his point, he gives it a light squeeze. “The physical touch helps distract you from all the stuff and remind you that you’re _here_ , in the present now.”

“This kind of stuff works?” 

“You tell me,” Seungmin says, pulling Minho’s hand closer. He eases Minho’s fingers apart, frowning a little at how stiff his hand is, in general, and starts working a massage up his pinky finger. 

“I bet it doesn’t,” Minho grumbles, and Seungmin snorts. But he’s closing his eyes, slowly relaxing; and Seungmin can feel the tension in his hand dissipate a little. He finds himself smiling a little as he moves on to the next finger, and to the next. 

When Minho eventually falls asleep, Seungmin pulls up his blankets and tries to tuck him in without jostling him too much, then quietly goes back to his room. 

After that night, Minho knocking on his door and climbing into bed next to him, keeping his distance but still allowing Seungmin to hold his hand, becomes a regular occurrence. 

Minho doesn’t share anything about his nightmares, and Seungmin doesn’t ask questions. It works for them; not needing to ask, not needing to know. Simply being in each other’s presence seems to just be enough.

  
  


**Step 5: Love your baby dragon.**

Two months in, Seungmin finds himself waking up to a complete stranger straddling him by the waist, elbows resting on his chest, propping his head up with his hands. 

Seungmin blinks, twice, before realising that he is now _very_ much awake and there’s a whole _naked_ grown man staring too closely at him with the biggest smile on his face.

Then he screams: “who the _fuck_ are you?!”

The stranger laughs, beams, then says, in a shockingly deep baritone, “Minnie is _so_ loud! Minnie is so _cute_!”

And then he snuggles into Seungmin’s chest and winds his arms and legs tightly around him; this behaviour reminds him of a certain too-clingy baby dragon, and whilst Seungmin starts to have his suspicions, the door bursts open.

Both Seungmin and the stranger’s heads snap towards the door, where Minho rushes in, hair still mussed from sleep, looking highly alert and concerned. 

“Oh,” Minho breathes out, clearly relieved by what he’s seeing. 

The weight lifts off Seungmin when the stranger-man practically screeches and flies straight at Minho, who is oddly calm and catches him in his arms. “I thought something terrible happened. Why’d you scream?”

Seungmin swallows, pushing himself up to a sitting position. Minho’s lack of reaction only seems to confirm his suspicions. “Is that— is that Bokie?”

Minho replies, unperturbed, as he pats not-dragon-Bokie’s washed-out lavender hair. “Yes?” 

“He’s old enough to _transform_?” Seungmin gapes. Now that he’s seeing it, he can spot some patches of iridescent scales down Bokie’s very human neck, and a dusting of iridescent specks across his cheeks. 

“He’s going through puberty,” Minho says matter-of-factly, as though that’s supposed to explain anything. 

“Puberty?!” Seungmin sputters. “He—”

“Min-min,” human-Bokie mumbles, snuggling into Minho’s neck and cutting him off. “Min-min, I’m hungry. I want eggs.”

“Okay,” Minho replies easily, pushing him slightly away. “After you put on some clothes, alright?”

Seungmin watches as Minho walks over to his closet and pulls out Seungmin’s clothes for human-Bokie to wear, helping the dragon-boy put them on. 

At this point, he no longer questions or finds himself getting annoyed at Minho treating the apartment and Seungmin’s belongings like his own. 

He just lies back down on his bed and pulls the covers over his face, hoping that this morning’s ordeal is the last of all life-changing events he has to experience.

  
  


Seungmin had thought he’d already hit the maximum limit on how attached he can get to dragon-Bokie, but it turns out that human-Bokie, now affectionately called by his full name, Yongbok, is a whole new different ball game.

For one, Yongbok is extremely cheerful and cuddly. _Extremely_. Seungmin can barely go about his daily chores without Yongbok clinging onto his back or asking if Seungmin can hold his hand, or snuggling into his side if they’re sitting on the couch. 

This behaviour doubles with Minho, who’s always been cuddly with Yongbok, even as a dragon. And it’s resulted in a few times where Yongbok tries to climb onto his shoulders, and _one_ time where Minho actually lets him.

That one foray of a grown man carrying another grown man on his shoulders resulted in a collision with the lowered kitchen ceiling, and a bright pink Hello Kitty bandaid on Yongbok’s forehead. 

It was… a little cute. Yongbok had been all giggly about it even as Seungmin dabbed antiseptic on the bruise and stuck the bandaid on. 

“Kiss to make it better?” Minho had suggested, a teasing lilt in his eyes. 

Seungmin had rolled his eyes, but obliged, as he pressed a light kiss on Yongbok’s newly bandaged wound. Yongbok had squealed and immediately pulled Seungmin into a hug.

Fine, it was _really_ cute.

Although, the one act that absolutely won Seungmin over is when Minho suggests to go out for a walk, and Yongbok immediately heads towards his carrier and tries to crawl in. 

“I can’t fit!” The dragon-boy whimpers, finally the first time ever where he’s shown any sign of distress as a human, as he turns back towards them, head stuck in the carrier. 

“You don’t have to,” Seungmin says gently, as he lifts the carrier off Yongbok’s head and is greeted with the sight of an extremely pouty Yongbok. He can’t help but laugh and ruffle the poor boy’s hair, “you don’t have to when you look like this, Bokie.”

Yongbok’s lip wobbles. “I want to.”

“Do you know how to… transform back?”

He shakes his head. Seungmin shares a look with Minho, who just shrugs. 

“Then it’s okay,” Seungmin smiles, turning back to Yongbok, “we can go walk like this.”

“But I’m scared,” Yongbok whines, shrinking a little, head drooping. 

Seungmin frowns. He reaches out for Yongbok’s hands, and takes one, slowly rubbing circles with his thumb. “You don’t have to be scared of anything. Minnie and Min-min are here with you. We’ll keep you safe. Right, Min-min?”

He turns back, expecting Minho to instantly follow-up, but what greets him instead is Minho looking awed, slightly gaping and eyes glistening. 

For some reason, this flusters Seungmin a little.

“Minho-hyung?” He presses.

Minho snaps out of his reverie, and he smiles in response, taking Yongbok’s other hand. “Of course.”

Seungmin spots that Minho’s smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes, but he decides to not bring it up.

  
  


If there was one thing all of Seungmin’s friends would vouch for in an instant, it was that Seungmin had a very odd way of expressing his love for others. 

He’d pull away from Chan’s hugs with a grimace, actively avoid Jisung if he’s in a kissy mood, quietly nod along to Hyunjin’s declarations of love and shoot down Changbin’s constant pestering for him to say those three words that would automatically make him shudder and cringe.

It’s not that Seungmin doesn’t… doesn’t _love_ his friends, he does, it’s just physically difficult for him to say those words or even show affection the way his friends do. And even if he finally manages to say something even _slightly_ affectionate, it always comes out sounding sarcastic.

And while he, on the outside, continued to bashfully reject his friends’ affectionate gestures, this inability started to build up inside and became a complex that Seungmin struggled to get over.

On a particularly drunken night, he’d even wallowed to Hyunjin tearfully about this, hiccuping pathetically, “you guys are all gonna leave meee because I can’t even tell you how much I love you alllllll.”

“Don’t be a silly Minnie,” Hyunjin had laughed and petted his head reassuringly, “everyone shows love differently. You need to stop overthinking everything.”

“How can you keep loving me if you don’t know whether I love you back or not?” 

Hyunjin rolled his eyes. “I _know_ you love me, Minnie. You always let me eat your chicken drumsticks even though they’re your favourite. And you always clean up my mess and wash my dishes and do my laundry for me whenever you come over even though you’re always complaining about how dirty I am.”

Seungmin had teared up, then. “I love you, Hyunnie,” he’d said, wiping his tears and snot on Hyunjin’s hoodie, “I hope you know that.” 

“Of course I do. I love you too, Minnie.” 

But when the next morning came around, Seungmin reverted back to normal and absolutely refused to talk about his drunk ramble the night before. Hyunjin had hit him playfully on the arm and rolled his eyes, as usual, but they had left it at that.

Basically, the conclusion is: Seungmin does love his friends. And the people around him, even if he doesn’t show or say it in grandiose affectionate gestures. He learns that he much prefers subtle acts of service, and like Jisung once joked, sometimes Seungmin simply tolerating their existence is the best expression of love that can ever come from him. 

So, when he hears something shatter bright and early in the morning, finding Yongbok tearfully trying to piece together the broken pieces of _his_ favourite mug, spilled hot chocolate splattered all over the expensive fleece jacket he’s wearing, Seungmin initially thinks whatever higher power up there is simply testing his limits.

“Don’t touch that!” He yells, startling Yongbok who instantly drops the ceramic pieces in his hands, shattering them even more. 

“I’m so sorry,” Yongbok wails as Seungmin rushes over, checking his hands for any cuts. 

“Are you hurt anywhere?” He asks, rolling Yongbok’s sleeves up to check his arms too, just in case. 

Yongbok shakes his head, shrinking into himself as much as he can. Seungmin squats down, and makes him lift his feet one at a time so he can check that Yongbok hasn’t stepped on any broken pieces. 

When that’s all clear, he steers Yongbok away from the crash. “Don’t move until I tell you to do so, okay?”

After Yongbok shakily nods an affirmation, Seungmin grabs the broom and dustpan by the trash bin and starts sweeping up the shattered mug on the ground. 

The puddle of hot chocolate on the floor however, makes this simple sweeping task an arduous one as the broom starts to soak up the drink and make an even bigger mess on the floor. 

Seungmin lets out a frustrated sigh, and Yongbok instantly reacts, “I’m really sorry, Minnie. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay, Bokie,” Seungmin reassures, looking back up at the dragon-boy and giving him a small squeeze on the shoulder. “Where’s your Min-min?” 

“Min-min went out,” Yongbok replies, shakily. “You’re not angry at me? Please don’t be angry at me.” 

Seungmin blinks. “I’m not angry at you,” he says, slowly. “Why would you think I’m angry at you?”

“You were angry at Min-min here before,” Yongbok whispers, shrinking. “And Min-min was angry at you here before.” 

Something dawns upon Seungmin as he watches Yongbok trembling in fear, trying to make himself look small and realises that he wants nothing but to put the smile back on the dragon-boy’s face.

His mind clears.

“I’m not angry at you,” Seungmin repeats, determinedly this time, putting his broom away, and holds one hand out for Yongbok. “Why don’t I explain it to you while we get you cleaned up?”

Yongbok takes his hand, and Seungmin cautions, “careful, don’t step on the hot chocolate.”

He gently leads them out of the kitchen and into the bathroom, where he peels off the stained fleece jacket, dumps it in the sink, and starts the shower for Yongbok. 

The dragon-boy is quiet and docile the whole time, and Seungmin finally sighs while massaging Yongbok’s scalp with the shampoo. 

“The kitchen is a very dangerous place,” he starts, turning the shower head on and rinsing the shampoo out of Yongbok’s hair, “that’s why we get angry. Because we don’t want the people we love to get hurt.” 

“People we love?” Yongbok tilts his head. “What’s that?”

Seungmin pauses. The water from the shower continues running, just like his thoughts, crashing into each other as he thinks, seriously, for the first time, what it really means to love someone. 

Deep down, he knows that he already understands. It’s a matter of acceptance. To Seungmin, love is—

“People who make me really happy,” he says, quietly but firm. “People who I want to make really happy. People who I know will be there for me, always, and people who I want to be there for, always. People who I can find a home in.”

 _And people who can find a home in me._

But he doesn’t say that, not out loud. Yongbok’s home is somewhere else. 

Yongbok processes what he’s just been told, and Seungmin can’t help but laugh as he watches the gears turn; how his confused expression slowly gives way to slight understanding.

“I’m someone you love?” Yongbok asks, eyes wide, pointing at himself. 

Seungmin doesn’t even hesitate when he says, “of course you’re someone I love.”

“You love me?” Yongbok gasps, unable to stop the childlike glee spreading across his face.

“I love you,” Seungmin smiles back. “Very much so.”

  
  


“Can I come in?” Minho asks, that night, poking his head from the doorway to Seungmin’s room. 

“Nightmare again?” Seungmin questions, making space for Minho on his bed.

Minho hesitates. “No,” he says, settling down beside Seungmin and grabbing a pillow to hug. “I just wanted to talk. I heard that you told Yongbok you loved him today.” 

Seungmin quiets. It’s not something he can, or should deny. So he admits, “I did.” 

“Thank you.” 

“What for?” 

“For not chasing us away that night,” Minho mumbles, eyes downcast. “For giving us a chance.” 

“Don’t be silly,” Seungmin jokes, trying to lighten the mood. “You know old Mrs. Jo next door would welcome you and Yongbok with open arms.” 

“Shut up,” Minho rolls his eyes. “You know she’d probably chase us down the street with an empty _soju_ bottle or something.” 

Seungmin snorts as he imagines Minho and dragon-Bokie sprinting down the road, chased by a frenzied old lady waving a cracked _soju_ bottle. 

For a while, they sit in comfortable silence. Then Minho reaches over and takes his hand, threading their fingers together. 

Seungmin doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t move, he doesn’t pull away. It’s warm, it feels nice, and he doesn’t want to break this moment. He simply holds Minho’s hand back, and feels the way Minho relaxes as he rubs circles into the back of his hand with his thumb. 

“Thank you, Kim Seungmin,” Minho eventually whispers, squeezing his hand tightly. There’s something unspoken there, something cold. _Please don’t let go._

So Seungmin squeezes his hand back, holds it tightly, and smiles. _I won’t._

But all good things must come to an end.

Seungmin should’ve known. 

  
  


**(Additional step: Learn how to be happy.)**

When Minho and Yongbok left, it was without any warning.

Seungmin simply woke up to an empty apartment. 

The first indication that something was wrong wasn’t the quiet; Yongbok had learned to be quiet in the mornings, and Minho often left the apartment for a morning run or a grocery stop or whatever— no, it wasn’t the quiet.

The first indication that something _was_ wrong was the apartment being colder than usual. 

Yongbok hasn’t learned to breathe fire, or anything of that sort, but he was pretty much a walking furnace; and when Seungmin woke up with his feet slightly numb from the autumn cold, he’d felt a familiar, long-lost feeling of unease and anxiety bubbling in his gut.

The next was that everything was cleaned up. 

Honestly. 

Honestly, that was what made everything _so much worse_. 

Minho didn’t leave him any sort of goodbye message. Or any kind of message at all. Instead, he left him a _cleaned_ apartment. Minho had washed all the dishes, did the laundry, folded his clothes, cleared the trash. 

Took away every sign of there having been other inhabitants in the apartment. Reset everything to default.

It was almost as though they hadn’t even lived there, at all.

The only indication that everything wasn’t just a fever dream was the thermal flask of still-warm morning coffee that he’d left on the kitchen table for Seungmin. 

Seungmin’s heart had clenched as he held the flask, the slowly, seeping warmth from it being the last reminder that the past few months was _real_. 

He didn’t drink it anyway. He’d been too nauseous to do so. 

  
  


Hyunjin stares at him worriedly. “Are you sure, Minnie?” 

“I’m sure,” Seungmin snaps, barely thinking about anything at this point. He glances at the crowd on the dance floor, feeling the bubbling nausea from earlier spike as he watches the sea of bodies, huddled together, dancing, blending into each other under the reds and the blues and the yellows and greens of the strobe lights, masked by the heavy, _heavy_ beats of whatever the DJ is spinning.

_Not there. Not there._

He’ll get a drink. He _needs_ a drink. Or maybe a few. Anything that can stop the way his stomach is turning, anything that can help him breathe better, _make him forget_. 

Seungmin feels Hyunjin’s unwavering, sharp gaze. “Stop it. I can _hear_ you worrying.” 

Hyunjin shuts up, still looking thoroughly worried but doesn’t stop him as Seungmin takes a deep breath, and makes a beeline straight for the bar. 

  
  


The club ends up being where he first meets Yang Jeongin. 

“Hi,” someone smiles, extremely brightly, when Seungmin wakes up the next morning, swaddled in warm blankets on a couch he doesn’t quite recognise. “Please don’t freak out.”

Seungmin remembers nothing from last night.

He sits up, slowly, his head pounding in an oddly rhythmical beat, throat feeling scratched, painful, and accepts the glass of water pushed in his direction. 

“Sorry, and thanks for not freaking out,” the stranger continues, bright smile still consistently wide. “You passed out on me and I couldn’t get your Face ID to work to call your friends or something, so I just brought you home.”

The water helps to bring back some functionality to Seungmin’s throat, and he croaks, “did we…?”

“Woah, no,” the boy startles, waving his hands quickly. “I don’t take advantage of people when they’re blackout drunk.”

Seungmin squints. The boy looks barely of age, features sharp and youthful, and if Seungmin hadn’t known that they’d met at a club, he would’ve thought that he was still in high school. Especially with the bright pink hoodie he’s currently wearing, that’s making Seungmin’s eyes _hurt_. “You look too young to be in a club.”

“I could say the same about you,” the boy shoots back, grinning, revealing a pair of deep-set dimples. “Anyway, I’m Jeongin. You are?”

“Seungmin,” he returns. The bright smile he gets back only reminds him of a certain cheerfulness he’s lost. 

  
  


For some reason, after just a few weeks of knowing each other, Seungmin can’t really remember anymore, he and Jeongin end up being a _thing_. 

His friends— especially Hyunjin, had been concerned at first, but they’d all quickly warmed up to Jeongin, and after the first few initial questions, Jeongin had seamlessly integrated into their friend circle, and into Seungmin’s life.

Maybe it’s because Jeongin fills the newly-formed hole in his heart extremely well. He brings the same brightness and cheery spirit that Yongbok often carried, while having a playful, standoffish side that reminds him of, of—

Anyway. 

For a while, it works. Seungmin finds comfort in Jeongin’s smiles, his laughs, his quips. He finds amusement in the way Jeongin always pretends to be annoyed whenever he asks him to get him coffee in the mornings, but does it anyway. 

For a while, it works.

And then it stops working.

Jeongin is his own person, Seungmin _knows_ that, but perhaps everything had started falling apart right from the beginning, when he’d initially used Jeongin as a replacement, as a bandage to plaster up the gaping wound in his heart. 

But bandages don’t last forever. Plasters always start peeling off after a while. 

When it stops working, Seungmin stops being able to dissociate Jeongin’s mannerisms from _them_. Jeongin’s mega-watt sunshine smile. Yongbok’s mega-watt sunshine smile. Jeongin breaking or spilling things. Yongbok breaking or spilling things. Jeongin acting like he doesn’t care, putting on a cool exterior. Someone else acting like he doesn’t care, putting on a cool exterior. 

Jeongin holding his hand, telling him thank you, at the end of every date. 

Someone else holding his hand, telling him thank you, at the end of the night. 

Their dating thing lasts barely three months before Seungmin calls it quits.

“It’s okay,” Jeongin smiles, cheerily, although it never quite reaches his eyes. Seungmin’s stomach churns; his heart clenches _again_ , because this not-quite-smile only reminds him of someone else. “I understand.” _No, you don’t._ “We’ll still be friends, right, hyung?”

“Of course,” Seungmin says, trying to smile, but only ends up mirroring Jeongin’s not-quite-smile.

That was the last they’d ever talked, for a long time.

  
  


(“Why did you end it with Jeongin?” Hyunjin had pouted over his mint chocolate frappe. 

Seungmin shrugged. “He deserves better—”

He blinked at the straw wrapper that hit his face and sighed, bending down to pick it up from where it fell to the floor. 

“If I hear you say that again, Kim Seungmin,” Hyunjin warned, as he waved a frappe-filled straw at him threateningly.

Seungmin rolled his eyes, and chucked the wrapper right back at Hyunjin, who squawked at the attack. 

“It didn’t feel right,” Seungmin eventually said. “Maybe we went into it too quickly. Maybe we’re just better off as friends.” _Maybe it’s because I’m waiting for someone else._

Hyunjin pouted again. “But Jeongin was—”

“You know you can still be friends and meet up with Jeongin without me being in a relationship with him, right?” Seungmin had quirked an eyebrow then, half-grinning at how quickly Hyunjin had flushed after hearing his words. 

“That’s not what I wanted to say,” but Hyunjin had deflated, anyway. “I just wanted you _both_ to be happy, Minnie.” 

“And we were,” Seungmin smiled faintly, and reached out to pat Hyunjin’s hand to reassure him (and maybe himself), “don’t worry about us.”)

  
  
  


It takes another few months before Seungmin starts picking himself together, and his life finally goes back on track. 

Hyunjin deserves some kind of award, honestly, because he was relentless this time in forcing Seungmin to go see a psychologist, and to keep seeing them; and that was a rather big turning point for him.

For one, it helps lessen the nausea and anxiety that had made itself at home for the past few months. Breathing comes easier; thinking comes easier, doing things come easier. 

While therapy doesn’t do much in way of filling the gaping hole in his heart, in his _life_ , but the positive effects of it introduced Seungmin to something that did: song-writing. 

Granted, he’s nowhere even comparable to the level that experienced producers like Chan are at, but creating lines of melancholic melodies and penning down accompanying lyrics gives him a peace of mind. Creating songs grants him a safe haven in expressing his thoughts, his feelings, his experiences lyrically. 

It’s really cathartic, actually. He doesn’t have to worry about people looking at him all funny, Hyunjin pressurising him to tell him what’s wrong, Chan giving him Looks, or anything. 

With each short melody, Seungmin can tell a whole story. 

  
  


(“Wow,” Chan had said, eyes widened and looking utterly impressed when Seungmin presented one of his drafts to him. “This is so good. This is _really_ good, Seungminnie.”

“Really?” Seungmin had let out a breath of relief, allowing the smallest of smiles to settle on his face. “I was hoping that you or Jisung could sing it, and put it on your next album.”

Chan had looked flabbergasted then, and it had confused Seungmin. “Why?”

“What do you mean why?”

“ _You_ should be singing your own song,” Chan frowned, gesturing towards his laptop screen, where Seungmin’s guide, titled _you_were_beautiful_finalfinal.m4a_ was playing. “Do you even _hear_ yourself?”

Seungmin flushed, shrinking. “You’re just being nice, hyung. I’m sure Jisung can sing this better—”

“Seungmin. You can’t be serious.”

“I _am_ being serious!”

“If you’re not singing it, then we’re not releasing it.”

“Sure.” 

“Seungmin,” Chan sighed. “Okay, what about this. Please sing it, and if it doesn’t hit Top 100 in the charts in a month, we’ll _maybe_ get Jisung to cover it.” 

Seungmin frowned. “Fine. I’m telling you first that it’s just gonna be a waste of time.”)

  
  
  


It’s a chilly October evening when they get together for a joint celebration for Chan’s birthday and Seungmin’s first solo release finally charting on the Top 10 Daily. 

“To Chan-hyung being one step closer to death,” Jisung jokes, ignoring the half-offended yell and nimbly evading the flying slipper as he gets ready to pop the champagne, “and Seungminnie’s _big_ solo debut!”

Hyunjin, being Hyunjin, is the only one that screams as the bottle pops and the cork goes flying. Jisung does a pretty terrible job at pouring the champagne in the fancy wine glasses that Changbin had whipped out for this occasion, getting more of it on the table than in the glasses, which warrants a lot of yelling and chaos.

Seungmin snorts at the sight of Changbin trying to wrestle the bottle away from Jisung, causing _even_ more chaos, when someone raises a glass right in front of him.

He startles, but only for a while, because Chan waggles his eyebrows triumphantly at him, prompting him to take the glass. “Hey there, South Korea’s biggest rising _hot_ rookie singer.” 

“Hey yourself, birthday boy,” Seungmin huffs, accepting the champagne and ignoring the extremely elaborate title Chan bestows him. “How’s the one-way trip to hell feel like?” 

Chan rolls his eyes, sighing, but shoots back, “how’s overwhelming fame and success feel like? Now, I don’t want to tell you I told you so, but—”

“You’re speaking like a boomer, hyung.” 

“—I told you it was good. Hey! Can’t you let me breathe?” Chan glares at him, then downs his champagne in one shot, wincing almost immediately after. 

Seungmin grins. “Nope.”

The jostling at the table must’ve ended, because Jisung is here, slinging an arm across Seungmin’s shoulders, and clinking their glasses together. “Here’s to Seungminnie producing the most relatable break-up song ever, and to everyone who’s having a terrible time getting over their beautiful ex.”

“That’s extremely specific,” Seungmin teases, leaning back into Jisung’s hold. He’s comfortably warm. 

“Changbin’s not beautiful,” Jisung simply says, which sends them all laughing and Changbin glaring at them from the table, sensing that they’re laughing at his expense again. 

“He clearly is to you, if you’ve dated him,” Chan points out after.

“I guess,” Jisung dramatically sighs. “You wanna know how I feel about it?” 

“ _No,_ ” Seungmin deadpans, sensing what’s about to come next. “Don’t you _dare_ , Han Jisung.”

Jisung, being Jisung, ignores him and belts out the chorus of Seungmin’s song: “ _beautiful, just the way that you would look at me, was so much I never wanna leave—_ ”

“You’re welcome,” says Hyunjin, who looks all too proud for simply stuffing a cream puff into Jisung’s mouth. It effectively shuts him up, though, so Seungmin gives his long-time best friend a grateful smile.

“Were you guys making fun of me again?” Changbin accuses loudly, as he finally joins their little circle. 

“Jisung thinks you’re beautiful,” Chan says matter-of-factly, somehow sounding tired at the same time. Hyunjin snorts, and Seungmin watches in amusement as their two friends turn red at the same time.

“I was just complimenting Seungmin’s lyrics,” Jisung squeaks out, ears and cheeks flaring.

“Right,” Changbin mutters, looking awfully suspicious for a moment, but drops it. “Speaking of Seungmin’s lyrics, where did you get the inspiration from? It’s really emotionally raw, almost as though you—”

Hyunjin shoots him a look of warning there and then, and Changbin shuts up so fast that Seungmin actually giggles, instead, relieving the short tension that accidentally built up in the past few seconds.

“I’m fine,” Seungmin reassures, then smiles, wryly, as he recounts, “it’s based on this story I read somewhere about a time-traveller and his baby dragon…”

  
  


The party lasts barely after midnight, because Jisung is the first to pass out on the floor after sobbing his eyes out at Seungmin’s story (“ _that’s so sad! How can they never meet again? They have to meet again! What happened to the baby dragon? How can it just end like that?_ ”) and everyone else had decided to call it a day then. 

“Hyunjin,” he nudges his unconscious best friend, who’s somehow sprawled all over the backseat of their taxi despite being all strapped up. “Hyunnie, you’re home.” 

Hyunjin doesn’t even stir. Seungmin sighs, fondly, knowing he’s impossible to wake up, then apologises to the taxi driver, who just waves them off, most likely having ferried a countless number of similarly knocked-out college drunks before. 

Thing is, they’re no longer in college, and Seungmin no longer has the stamina to haul a whole hundred eighty centimeters of man, but he eventually manages to get Hyunjin home and tucked in his bed after a quick wash up.

“Minnie,” Hyunjin whines, rolling over the moment Seungmin gets ready to leave.

“Oh, so _now_ you wake up,” Seungmin chuckles. “I left some water and painkillers by your bedside, so when you wake—”

“Minnie, shut up. I have something important to say.”

Seungmin snorts, but sits on Hyunjin’s bed and gets ready to entertain his drunken ramble, probably about how some second lead in a drama deserves better or something.

Hyunjin, however, pulls himself up and stares at Seungmin, with surprising clarity, “are you happy, Seungmin?”

That’s not what Seungmin’s expecting. 

When he doesn’t answer immediately, Hyunjin’s face starts crumpling and his tears start welling up. “You have to be happy, Minnie! You have to be!”

Seungmin laughs, ruffling his hair and gently pushing him back on the bed, pulling the blankets back up around him. “You’re only cute when you’re drunk and spouting nonsense.”

Hyunjin only sniffles in response. “Answer me, Kim Seungmin.”

Seungmin sighs.

He’s known the answer for a while now. All that’s left to do is to say it out loud, to acknowledge it. 

“I think I can be,” he says, unsure at first, but the moment the words leave his lips, he feels some sort of confirmation, some kind of confidence washing over him.

And so he smiles, “I _will_ be. Don’t worry about me, Hyunnie.”

  
  


There’s always been a hole in Seungmin’s heart when they left. 

He’s tried filling it up. He’s tried dancing around it, ignoring its existence. Maybe even building a bridge over it. 

When all those doesn’t work, he ends up accepting that it’s just _there_. Some things aren’t meant to be fixed, and that’s okay. Sometimes, you have to accept that things are like that. And be okay with it. Or something along those lines. 

And Seungmin’s on his way to being _okay_ with it. 

So when he finally gets home, and spots a familiar back standing at his doorstep, everything he’s carefully worked on falls apart in an instant. 

“No _fucking_ way,” is what he says, but his vision blurs so _fast_ , and maybe he’s tired and a little drunk and everything in between, because he’s squatting on the floor, bawling his eyes out. 

“Don’t come near me,” he warns, burying his face in his hands when he spots the blurry figure coming close. “You’re not real. Fuck off.”

“We’re not going through all that again.” Soft laughter. A warm hand on his back, urging him to stand. Warm hands on his cheeks, brushing his tears away. Lee Minho, still as beautiful as ever, smiling warmly at him, “well, I was going to ask you for a blanket, but I think you need it more than me.”

Seungmin kicks him.

⏭

“To Seungmin’s last few days of being a free man,” Jisung mourns, raising his already opened can of beer. Some laughter erupts within their small circle of friends, gathered tonight for Seungmin’s bachelor party, as Jisung continues rambling on.

“—can’t believe our innocent, beautiful puppy Kim Seungminnie is getting married off to a _hag_ —”

“Excuse _you_ , I’m still here,” Minho retorts, slapping Jisung’s thigh hard enough that it elicits a sharp hiss from him; and startling the once curled-up cat in Seungmin’s lap. 

“You scared Bokie away,” Seungmin says, in dismay, as he watches their small, white cat saunter off towards the kitchen. 

Minho shrugs in apology, a light grin tugging off his lips. “Blame Sungie.”

“Babe,” Jisung whines, falling over to the person on his other side dramatically, as always. “Babe, I’m being bullied!”

“You deserve it,” Changbin replies brightly, nicking Jisung’s beer from him and taking a long sip from it. Jisung hollers some unintelligible words in protest, and makes grabby hands as he attempts to get his alcohol back. 

“You are so _fucking_ loud,” Hyunjin complains, glaring at the two. 

“Oh?” Jisung perks up. “Wanna know how much louder I can get in the bedroom?” 

“No?” Hyunjin scrunches his nose in disgust. “What the fuck? Changbin-hyung, _please_ collect your man.”

“Mhm,” Changbin hums, putting away his beer, then pulls Jisung forcefully into his lap, and starts petting his hair. This instantly subdues Jisung, who closes his eyes and leans into the touch, finally shutting up and providing them much needed peace. 

“Thank you,” Hyunjin mutters, but without malice. 

Right then, someone emerges from the kitchen, with Bokie in his arms. 

“Hey, I found a stray cat in the kitchen,” Jeongin beams, depositing Bokie into Hyunjin’s lap— a bad idea, because Hyunjin starts shrieking something about having allergies towards cats, and _that_ gets Bokie scattering across the floor again, up until Minho picks him up. 

“Well,” Jeongin grins, as though nothing just happened, “I just came out to tell you guys that the cookies are almost ready!”

“Thanks, Innie,” Minho beams right back, making one of Bokie’s paws wave, which in turn makes Jeongin giggle. 

Seungmin finds himself watching the whole exchange with a growing smile. At one point in his life, he would’ve never imagined seeing either of those two ever again, much less seeing them _both_ in the same room. 

Seeing Minho appear on his doorstep again all those years back had been unreal. Even seeing Minho now, in the living room of their shared apartment, cuddling their house pet, still feels unreal to Seungmin. It’s almost as though part of him can never shake away the lingering fear that one day he would wake up to a missing presence, an empty apartment— of Minho leaving again.

 _You’re being silly_ , Minho had teased, when Seungmin eventually brought this up to him months after he returned, after he was asked why he had to keep sticking his head into Minho’s room every night before he slept. _I’m not gonna leave_.

 _Who knows if your time-travelling duties will call upon you again,_ Seungmin had grumbled. 

_They won’t_ , Minho reassured, gaze soft and understanding. _I had it all settled. I’m not leaving._

If Minho noticed any of Seungmin’s increasingly clingy behaviours, he never mentioned it. He also never mentioned what he did in the period from where he first left to when he returned, only cryptically telling Seungmin that he’d brought Yongbok back to a safer time, and that Yongbok was happy with his new dragon family.

Seungmin misses Yongbok, sometimes. He knows Minho does too, with the distant, faraway looks he often has when he plays with their cat, that he’d stubbornly insisted to name as Bokie. 

Jeongin, on the other hand, had barged right back into Seungmin’s life slightly after Minho returned, months after they stopped talking, acting like nothing had happened between them. It was awkward definitely, at first, but slowly, Seungmin had learnt how to be Jeongin’s friend.

And with Jeongin, came—

“I present y’all freshly baked, very delicious cookies,” a deep and pleasant voice laughs, interrupting Seungmin’s train of thoughts as a second figure leaves the kitchen, this time holding a tray of chocolate chip cookies.

With Jeongin, came Felix.

Seeing Felix for the first time had shocked Seungmin completely, and for good reason. The Australian-Korean resembled Yongbok right down to the light lavender hair, and the only thing that was lacking was the iridescent scales. 

He’d been in shock the entire time Jeongin introduced Felix as his new boyfriend to their friend group, which Minho had seamlessly integrated into.

( _My Grindr boyfriend,_ Seungmin had joked when introducing Minho to his friends, because that raised much lesser questions on where Minho came from, or why he’d suddenly appeared as Seungmin’s partner. 

And the look on people’s faces, when they even think about someone as straightlaced as Seungmin finding a lifelong partner using a dating app; that was always worth it.)

Minho, as usual, was much less surprised than Seungmin. _That can happen,_ he’d said easily. _Reincarnation, y’know? It’s been at least a thousand years from when we came from._

With the lessons he’d learnt from before, Seungmin had put in effort to know Felix as _Felix,_ and while the other’s cheerfulness and overall radiant vibe had reminded him of Yongbok, Felix had his more-than-occasional sarcastic taunts or his mini explosions of (very rapidly dissipating) anger whenever he loses a game or two— traits extremely specific to Felix that Seungmin grew to love. 

“I don’t know why we’re eating cookies at a bachelor’s party,” Chan jokes, wiping his hands down on his pants and leaving flour marks all over them, being the third and last person to have collaborated on the last-minute cookie baking idea. “Usually people just get shit-faced drunk.” 

“I don’t know about you, but Jisung looks pretty shit-faced to me,” Hyunjin offers. 

“ _Hey!_ Binnie-babe! Defend my honour!”

“Defend it yourself, you idiot.”

“They’re so gross,” Minho stage whispers to Seungmin, nudging him in Changbin and Jisung’s direction, but the fond smile on his face says everything otherwise. 

“Don’t be jealous,” Seungmin teases, as he reaches over and laces their fingers together. The matching silver bands on their ring fingers weigh heavy, but all it is is a reminder of their presence in the present.

He turns his gaze towards everyone else in the room; at Hyunjin and Jisung bickering again, Changbin just watching, amused; at Felix feeding Jeongin cookies, and Chan just smiling fondly at them all. Seungmin’s sure he has the same stupid smile on his face. 

After all, these are all the people he loves, anyway. 

The ones that he finds a home in, and the ones that find a home in him.

When Hyunjin pulls him aside later that night and asks the same question he did, years before, Seungmin finds that the answer comes easily, now. 

“Yes, I am,” he grins. 

He can’t wait to find out how much better life can get from now on. 

—

“Remember when you asked me what was my favourite time-travelling story?” 

“... Yeah?”

“Well, it’s—”

“Actually, no, please don’t say it.” 

“—the one where I got to meet a very beautiful and kind boy who lent me his favourite blanket when I asked for one.”

“That’s disgusting. Disgustingly cheesy.”

“Did I say it was you? I didn’t say it was you.”

“Shut up.”

**Author's Note:**

> hello it's me and i fucking love 2min they're my Favourites so i had to write about them but like ?! the more i tried to write the more i'm like,, yeah i can't really do them justice,,,, ( ⁍᷄⌢̻⁍᷅ ) if you made it all the way here - thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> may the 2min tag Please Flourish! 
> 
> thank you to my brainwormy for hearing me cry about this for months on end and helping me read through it many many times and validating me that this can actually be posted ;_;
> 
> edit: [please look at sleepy baby bokie ;________;](https://twitter.com/brainedworm/status/1306994714030211077)
> 
> twt: [@divorcedrachas](https://twitter.com/divorcedrachas) (pls let us yell about 2min together)


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